Fears

Poor little boy. Watched an episode of Doctor Who at dinner, and it happened to be a scary one. Now he's up and scared of zombies. No more Doctor Who for us. I wish we had never let him watch TV - ever, but being the youngest, he gets more, and earlier than the girls did. I totally gave up fighting with hubby about it when he was 3.5 or 4 yrs old - I couldn't do it anymore. And poor little boy is the loser. And of course my feeling sorry for him makes it worse, makes him think that he's right to be scared. Mothers are always wrong and to blame. Everyone says so. Everything is always our fault. No matter what we do. I hate it. Poor little boy.

And big girl had a total meltdown this evening. She is so tired of being "stupid", and is so stressed about school, that the mere thought of bad news laid her out. we didn't even get to talk about it- it wasn't that bad of news, she just lost it at the thought getting the news! She is in therapy to deal with her anxiety and learned tendency to give up. I guess its helping, since she can now express herself, and is getting some confidence in herself. Maybe we will talk about it tomorrow.

And I think I must have Aspergers or something. I find this person stuff too overwhelming. I would much rather just deal with ideas and things. Always have, I guess I always will. I think that's why I like working with babies so much - so much less is demanded mentally from you. I am so tired. My brain just wants to curl up into a ball and suck its thumb.

The sleepless house

My hubby can fall asleep in less than 5 minutes. I usually take at least an hour.

One of the kids takes after hubby, thank the lord.

The other two have a lot of trouble falling asleep.

The big girl often says she's up for hours. She seems to have figured out how to deal with it, and hasn't complained for awhile. I'm sure the ipad in the bedroom both makes it harder to fall asleep, and whiles away the hours of sleeplessness. I remember reading for hours when I was a teen.

This year the little boy is having a lot of trouble. He's almost 10 now, so maybe hormones are kicking in. It seems to come in waves, with weeks of complaining that he's up for 'hours', then weeks where he falls asleep after only an hour and a half.

We have tried cutting back on TV and computer time after dinner to see if that would help. Its hard to tell, since this family can't sustain it for very long. We are a screen family, for better or for worse. I have given in, and let the screen rule. It is the most horrendous fight, with every member of the family, to go even 3 days with no screen time after dinner.

Little boys problem is made worse by his fear of the dark and the scary things out there. And that means that I have to stay up until he's asleep, or he just keeps coming into my room. He used to share a room with his sister, which really helped. Now the two girls are sharing, and he's on his own, and on the main floor by himself. Not really anywhere else to move him to, unless we squeeze him into the girls room. Which I may have to do.

We were having a wonderful couple of weeks where I could go to bed at 10:30pm to get 7 hours of sleep. Now he's up to 11, 11:30pm. I'm getting sleep deprived, lol. And so is he, of course. Maybe we will stick him in with the girls at night for a week or two, until he relaxes again.

Ahhhhh, problem solved.

Tomorrow, I will get some sleep. :)

Comfort

This article has some things that I need to put into my life. I have been sad since the spring, not as overwhelmed by sadness as then, but still sad. I feel so good in some ways, so worried that i will fall into depression again in other ways. I need to get my comforts together. (I used to cuddle a stuffed dog and suck my thumb when sad - right up until my first child was born! Then I cuddled her, lol.) Time for another stuffie, I think. :)

Where I Find Comfort in a Scary World

by Mira Bartók

This past fall, a dear friend of mine developed a brain infection, followed by a massive stroke. I had always thought of Nancy, a gifted artist, as the other half of my brain. Since I was 19, Nan had been my confidante, mentor, friend and surrogate mom. My own mother, who died six years ago, was schizophrenic and incapable of being the stable parent I needed. Nancy had filled that void for more than 30 years.

After I learned of her illness, I had a hard time falling asleep. One night, before going to bed, I opened a book by one of my favorite Buddhist authors, hoping she could offer some pre-sleep comfort and enlightenment. But her words did nothing to help. I couldn’t focus. My mind kept ticking away: Is Nan going to be OK? Is she still there, somewhere in the forest of lost sentences that is her brain?

And then my frantic monkey mind moved on to other worrisome thoughts: my distraught friends who were still dealing with the aftereffects of Superstorm Sandy, the tragedy at Sandy Hook, my own personal woes. Some days it seems as if there is just too much sadness and chaos in the world.

I tried reading another page and gave up. Then I turned to something that often brings me solace: Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. It’s a story about an arrogant, vain china rabbit who must learn the hard lesson of love, through loss and struggle and loss once again. I opened the book and saw these lines from the poem “The Testing-Tree” by Stanley Kunitz: “the heart breaks and breaks / and lives by breaking. / It is necessary to go / through dark and deeper dark / and not to turn.”

Yes, I said to myself. I read those lines out loud, softly, my husband asleep by my side. And then—I admit it—I picked up something soft and fuzzy from my nightstand: a plush brown bunny with white ears. I keep it there for emergencies, along with my favorite picture books, Russian fairy tales and a collection of Yeats. These things comfort me. They renew my sense of wonder, especially in these dark times.

This past spring, I found myself, once again, with a bunny in one hand, rabbit book in the other. It was the night after the Boston Marathon bombing, and I was exhausted from grief. I asked myself, What else comforts me in my darkest hour? I made a mental inventory: My hand cupping my husband’s ear as he dozes off into dreamland. Our little dog, Sadie, curled up at my feet, her face turned toward the door. Why I cup my husband’s ear is a mystery. Why Sadie offers us her backside and not her sweet face is a mystery, too. But this arrangement soothes me. As does the heavy green mug I sip from, full of hot milk and molasses, when I need something to help me sleep. And now, since Nancy’s death in January, the photograph of her I placed on my refrigerator brings me the most comfort of all.

Sometimes a book about enlightenment can only go so far. Sometimes we need to return to elemental things, those soft, simple comforts: the sound of our loved one’s steady breath, the warmth of our dog, a picture book and, yes, even a plush bunny. For these things are the stuff of childhood. They are hope and wonder. And they are love.